Highway 49 is called the golden chain highway and connects numerous tiny hamlets as it weaves through the river canyons of the California gold country. This is the area where Joe Bourdet spent his youth, and it provided the formative images which inspire his music, and music for Joe has always been a family affair. It began with growing up around the humor and warmth of great San Francisco jazz trumpeter Jack Minger, and with being taught playground and jump rope songs by Jack’s granddaughter, Fannie. He was intrigued too as a youngster to see his mother Marilyn play and sing Red River Valley, once and only once as he recalls. As a teenager, he was permanently loaned a guitar, and encouraged to play by his uncle, Mike Bonnington. The instrument gave Joe an escape from a typically awkward High School experience and ultimately became a lifelong pursuit. From his father, Al, he learned a love of all things mechanical and the value of working with one’s hands.
This do-it-yourself mentality served Joe well, leading him to be equally involved in the technical aspects of music making as well as the artistic. He restores, customizes, and tunes to taste his guitars, instruments, amplifiers, and recording equipment, viewing them all as an extension of the personality he strives to put into the music. Learning recording technique first from dear friend, collaborator, and fellow guitar maniac Jason Soda, then professionally through a stint as a film sound recordist, Joe learned to produce and record music of his own, and now increasingly so, that of others. In 2021, Joe released his debut album, titled Meadow Rock. He lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, where his recording studio is called Mountain Sounds Recorders. Joe performs with his group The El Capitan Band, a loose group of friends who were involved in the making of the Meadow Rock album, who come together to bring those songs, and more, to the stage.
Today Glide is excited to premiere Joe’s new single “Silk Robe, Garden Flowers,” a co-write between Joe and Alana Amram, daughter of legendary composer David Amram. This lovely nugget of cosmic country is drenched in psychedelic California sun that is sure to please fans of the Eagles, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and Poco, but compared to the dreary sounds of a bygone era, Joe and his bandmates inject fresh life into this twangy sound. The instrumental performances and arrangement here are in part an homage to the Flying Burrito Brother’s brief but fertile Rick Roberts era and album. Bringing it all together are those supremely beautiful harmonies.
Joe Bourdet describes the inspiration behind the tune:
A fleeting, dreamlike experience in a garden, wandering in the morning after a fresh rain, the smell of wet flagstones, this is the setting for Silk Robe, Garden Flowers, a song about inevitable change, loss, and a relationship grown estranged. As the deluge of spring and its flowers give way to the heat of another California summer, delicate gardens, left untended, become overgrown and wild with brambles. In this song, we find that the protagonist’s romance has changed, much like the garden they wander through. The chorus is dominated by an existential question; in the striving for more, did we lose what we had? It concludes with certainty, yes, “something” is indeed gone. Still, the driving rhythm of the song propels us forward, signifying movement, and as this scene fades into the distance, we are afforded only a quick glance back as if through a rearview mirror. Life rolls on, garden flowers wither, and, as the protagonist of the song realizes, “love’s turned to brambles, growin’ wild”.
LISTEN:
